does someone has experience with Matrix Voice and openHAB integration. According to this article it should be pretty simple, because Matrix uses mqtt to pass the events:
The big advantage for this concept is that Matrix has it’s own voice recognition service ( Snips) and provides a microphone solution like Alexa has. You could define your own “language” and trigger word. Once the model is download to the device there is no more connection to the Internet (unless you want to update the definitions).
There is also a version, which has it’s own ESP286. Would be a smart solution if this would enable to run the device stand alone, otherwise you use the standard version as piggy back for a Pi 3B+.
It isn’t the Matrix but Snips to do MQTT. Snips is SW to run with any microphone input and has been available for some time (see e.g. this).
The PS4 eye or 4-mic ReSpeaker models are as-good in terms of recognition but cheaper.
The matrix voice is depending on the version only a microphone. Snips is an independent software platform for local voice assistants where the matrix voice is only one of many microphone arrays you can use to build your own voice assistant. The bare minimum you need for snips is a raspberry pi 3 and one of the old Playstation Eye cameras which have a 4 mic array and you can get them for under 10€ on eBay. Another popular choice would be to use a respeaker 2 mic or 4 mic array for the pi which are quite cheap too.
There is actually quite a few people including me using snips and Openhab in conjunction. A quite recent tutorial is this one here on the Forum:
And even over on the Snips Forum there is a few Openhab Users participating.
It’s a great system I I can fully recommend it.
Best regards Johannes
The matrix isn’t actually the best option especially if you are in Europe as you probably would have to import it from the US and its complicated to install on a pi with snips. Yes you need a pi 3 or above. I would really recommend the respeaker 2 mic pi array or the Playstation eye to start playing with snips to see if you like it. An alternative to the matrix would be the respeaker usb mic array v2 as you can easily buy it in Europe and its is very high performing as it has integrated processors for preprocessing the audio especially for voice assistants and even the integrated LEDs can be used when connected to the pi running snips. https://respeaker.io/usb_4_mic_array/
Best regards Johannes
Good morning, it’s available in Europe (55€ vs. €69 for the ReSpeaker v2 4 mic, that doesn’t makes a big difference), that was the 2nd link. I’m a little worried about a 2 mic array - sometimes es I read that you need to be within 3m, which definitely not work in my scenario. There was an article in the c’t magazine, which described a step-by-step setup, didn’t looked very complicated.
The eye cam is a great way to start. It worked suprisingly well for me. The respeaker v2 seams to be the one people have the best experiences with over on snips forum (picking up their voice two rooms away eg).
One thing I noticed is that especially in German snips works best for male voices. I can talk to it from the next room without a problem where it struggles with my girlfriends voice when she is more than a few meters away.
I check availability in Europe/Germany for ReSpeaker and reichelt.de has them.
At least the RPI RESP 4MIC has a nice price (19,95€), but specifies a rang of 3m = no option.
A small tutorial for an openHAB integration can be found there
amazon.com has the ReSpeaker Pro Case for $15.90. However, you need to organize shipping. I couldn’t find that at a European dealer. No problem for me, because a friend is coming from the US:-)
@JGKK What’s about this ReSpeaker 2 Mics Pi HAT board. From my understanding this sits directly on the Pi and doesn’t need the dedicated mic array - correct? Do you have any experience with this one? You can get it only “used” on amazon so I suppose that’s an old hardware with limited recognition capabilities?
@JGKK anything missing? Would you recommend a dedicated Pi to run Snips ai?
Is it correct that the ReSpeaker Mic Array 2.0 is just the 4xmic array, but requires a Pi and the Core 2.0 is a SoC, so the 6xMic array AND a executes the Snips software = does not require a Pi?
If I order and someone is interested I could organize to bring a couple of cases to Germany and ship them to you.
I did it, Matrix Voice on a RPi 3B+ with Mycroft AI and the openhab plugin.
It works quite okay for me. I have not tried with german language yet.
Please note that the matrix kernel modules are broken with the latest version of Raspberry Pi kernel. They are working on a fix, check the matrix io forum.
The core is a nice product but the installation is quite a bit more complicated for it as you can’t use the sam client from the mac or pc and many people seam to struggle with it but they have detailed instructions here https://docs.snips.ai/articles/other-platforms/respeaker-core-2.0
and many forum posts on it https://forum.snips.ai/search?q=Respeaker%20core
The performance should be equal on both as the 4mic v2 has really good integrated audio pre processing for voice applications. So my recommendation would be to go with a Pi 3b+ and the 4mic v2 for Snips, there is even a script to integrate the build in leds on the board nicely https://github.com/Psychokiller1888/snipsLedControl
The normal cheap 2 mic and 4 mic for pi without the preprocessing are probly on par with the eye cam in performance. I have snips running on a Pi 3B+ and the CPU load is averaging around 12% with nodered on the same pi doing all the processing of the intents. If you run it on the same Pi as Openhab you could run into memory issues as Openhab always uses quite a lot itself.
Best regards Johannes
